


To Sing and Fly Away

by beaubete



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 00Q00 - Freeform, Established Relationship, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Major Original Character(s), Multi, Original Character(s), Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4173621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skanda receives an invitation, and it makes him contemplate his life with Q and James.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sing and Fly Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DemonicSymphony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonicSymphony/gifts), [3littleowls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/3littleowls/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Three/Trì/Tribhyah](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3785677) by [3littleowls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/3littleowls/pseuds/3littleowls), [DemonicSymphony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonicSymphony/pseuds/DemonicSymphony). 



> And so, of course, this is inspired and gifted to DemonicSymphony and Littleowls3, and based on their RP and featuring their OC, Skanda.

He reads the card.  Turns it over—gilt design, rose coloured background, delicate white whorls—and reads it again.  It doesn’t change.   _Mr. and Mrs. Jyotiprakash and Maanika Chandra request the honour of your presence—_  He’s known this was coming.  He’s known it for a long time.  Skanda considers balling it up, considers throwing it in the bin and forgetting all about it, but then he remembers a hand on his shoulder, a tear-damp handkerchief being pressed into his palm furtively.  He remembers, and in the end he just takes the card to work where his two snooping lovers can’t find it.  For surety, he tucks it into the pages of an old volume of the Bhagavad-gita, nestled snugly against Lord Krishna’s advice to Arjuna.  He wishes the gods would come speak to him.

::

James has a way of looking at someone when he is suspicious of them.  Skanda’s been the subject of that probing stare more than once before, and if he’s honest with himself, he finds it a bit terrifying.  Only a bit—what can James do that he hasn’t been trained to inflict or withstand, himself?—but he’s careful when he gets home, anyway.  It’s James’s turn in the kitchen, which means that Skanda can theoretically curl up in comfort in the armchair with a book. It also means they’re not having takeaway and there won’t be a chip in sight tonight, unless Q gets pissed and drags them for doner later.  A little, contented smile curls in the corner of Skanda’s mouth, and as he settles into his spot on in the chair, he’s not terribly surprised that Q himself worms his way onto the oversized furniture beneath his arm.  The man is like a cat, needy and demanding of attention, though like a cat he can be wildly independent—a fact that Skanda and James seem to relearn from time to time.

For now, Q wants to snuggle.  Skanda loops his arm over Q’s shoulders and presses his lips to the top of his head.  Tonight’s book is love poetry—his unexpected mail has put him in the mood for it—but he can’t focus.  He loses himself in counting the myriad of Q’s curls instead.

“Read to me,” Q demands, and from the kitchen, Skanda can hear James snickering.

“What would you like me to read?” Skanda asks, because it’s all well and good for James to pretend they don’t dote on their young lover, but he’s seen him coddle him with extra sugar in his tea and open displays of affection that were never there before Q.  Affection, itself, that was never there before Q.  Skanda chuckles low to himself and looks down at Q.

“This one,” Q says, and Skanda realises he’s stopped with his thumb in a thoughtful place.

“These aren’t poems like—” he starts, but he can’t quite explain.  It’s poetry, of course, but in the way stark black birds on a winter sky are poetry: fleeting, winged.  “It’s more like thoughts, captured on paper.  Those five-second thoughts you have that never really develop into anything more, but are perfect on their own.  That’s what these are.”

“A whole book of them?” Q asks, and James laughs again, the sound distant and throaty and adored.  “Read me a few, then.  Your favourites.”

“Okay,” Skanda agrees genially.  “‘ _The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing, but Man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air_.’”

“That’s beautiful,” Q murmurs.

“It is.  ‘ _Tiny grass, your steps are small, but you possess the earth under your tread_.’—that one’s another of my favourites.  There are a lot of them like that in here, verses about God and taking joy in the smaller details of life.”

“Tell me another.”

“‘ _Sit still my heart, do not raise your dust.  Let the world find its way to you_.’,” Skanda reads.  The words are burrowing deeper than usual tonight.  “I’ve read this book a thousand times, and each time each poem says something different to me.”

“It’s lovely.”  Somehow James has come in without him noticing; he’s wiping his hands on a tea towel, and Q slides out from beneath Skanda’s arm like an eel.

“Is it done yet?” Q asks,and he’s halfway to the kitchen before James can scramble after him; he’ll pick all the olives from the salad if he’s not caught first, they all know from prior experience.  Skanda’s heart swells in his chest for a moment, and as he moves to follow them into the kitchen, James throws him a look over his shoulder.  There’s a conversation coming.

::

He makes it to work the next day before James corners him.  They share a clover of offices in the Double-oh section, and in her office, their secretary is typing merrily—probably gossipping on the Q-net chat system.  Q had set it up for interoffice memos, then promptly threatened to ban both Skanda and Bond from it after an extensive log of flirting and barely-decent innuendo had interrupted his presentation at last quarter’s budget meeting.  James at least has the decency to close the door to his office before their domestic.

“Are you going to France?” James asks, and.

“What?”  Skanda can feel his brow buckling as he tries to figure out—

“France.  Are you planning on fucking off without telling anyone?”

And it’s not quite fair, not wholly fair, that James still hurts this way over Q’s crisis a few months ago, but it’s something all three of them are working on, something they’re healing from together.  Even asking about it now is James attempting to be understanding—respectful, even—of whatever personal issue Skanda’s been apparently carrying on his face.

“No,” Skanda tells him truthfully.

“Then—?” James prompts.  Somewhere in the distance, a phone rings.

“I’m thinking about something.”  That’s true, too.  

“Something we need to know about?” James asks.

“Not yet.”  So is that.  There’s time yet—

“Mister—ah,”—and Darah hasn’t ever really learned how to pronounce Skanda’s name; he can’t blame her when so few people have—“Double-oh Three?  Is Double-oh Seven in there with you?”

James’s eyes are piercing.  “Yet?”

“Yet,” Skanda confirms.  “I will.  I promise.  I just need a few days to think about it.”

It turns out it’s James’s phone that was ringing.  Darah tuts girlishly over the two of them in the office with his door closed, and Skanda lets her, teasing back about her fiancee, and when James comes out of his office, he’s got a mission for two weeks.  Skanda swallows around a smile.

::

Q catches on next, because the thought of keeping a secret from him is laughable at best.  It’s Q’s night to cook—he’s actually cooking tonight, and there’s something so sweetly domestic about standing nearby with a fire extinguisher as Q’s hair curls in the steam coming off the pasta pot in billowing waves.  Q’s doing something involving peppers he perhaps shouldn’t be touching with bare hands, and Skanda is watching with one eye for flames while the other peruses the takeaway menus clipped to the magnetic memo board idly.  Perhaps they’ll do a pizza today, or order burgers, or he’ll let Q drag him to a Nando’s—he realises Q’s cheerful chatter has stilled, and when Skanda turns his full attention to him, Q looks expectant.

“Fancy going down the off-license for a beer and doing a piri piri if this doesn’t work out?” Skanda asks him.  Q purses his lips.

“You and James were quarreling today.”

“M told you it wasn’t ethical to watch the cameras in our offices.”  It’s glib, and Q’s lip twitches.

“You were.  Darah thinks you were having sex, you know.”

“Does she?”  It’s a thought.  Darah’s been secretary to their office clover for three years now, but in many ways he thinks her most valuable contribution to their team is in perpetuating the Double-oh reputation.  According to Darah, the Double-oh offices are bacchanal, filled with furtive whispers and torrid affairs; anyone who’s been in them knows this to be patently false, but there are so few people allowed in that she’s able to weave a story so gripping the secretaries in other departments trade updates like they’re recapping East Enders.  Skanda gets his updates from Marjorie in the secretary pool and shares them at home until Q’s howling with laughter and even James is chuckling.

“The door was closed, which I know you only do in a row, so,” Q says simply.  He shrugs his shoulders.  “I know we aren’t all going to get along always, but you’ll tell me if it’s something important, won’t you?”

“If it’s important,” Skanda agrees, then—“I need a date.”

“Are you that terrified of these things?” Q asks, gesturing to the peppers with a frown.  “They’re really not that spicy; I mean, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The steam coming from them is vaguely reminiscent of mustard gas, but Skanda shakes his head.  “A plus one.  I’ve been invited—”

“Oh!  Were you asking Bond to be your date?”  And Q looks adorable, owlish eyes and frizzled hair as he looks up from his mad scientist meal.

“Come on; we’re going out.  This stuff smells toxic.  Take the rest of those things to work and you can develop a new pepper spray,” Skanda tells him, reaching over to turn off the burners despite Q’s protests.  He loops his arm around Q’s waist and kisses him until he stops squirming.

::

He drafts his return in his head twice, then drafts it again: _Mr Skanda Adhikari regrets to inform you—_ no.   _It is with a heavy heart that Mr Skanda Adhikari_ —no, that doesn’t work, either.   _My dearest Aunt and Uncle, I must apologise—_ for being ungrateful for all of their help?  For not visiting or doing more than sending a few cards among the years?  He sighs.  He’s seen them a few times since the funeral, but with his job with MI6 there’s so little he can tell them about his life now.  They’d tried to keep in touch, but it’s Skanda who’s widened the gulf between them, unintentionally at first and then later for their own protection.  They had a baby girl, Shayna, barely a year old when her aunt and uncle had died in the horrific car crash that had left Skanda an orphan, and though he’d canceled the first family dinners, the first birthdays and holiday get togethers, because of a mission there, an injury he couldn’t show them here, he’d justified to himself that he was protecting them by forcing his distance, and it had only ached a little when the invitations had stopped.

“Hrm?” James hums at his shoulder.  They’re curled, the three of them, in the massive bed they so rarely get to share, and Skanda knows the sound of the gears of his mind are keeping James and Q up.  Q laughs, quiet and breathless in the dark, and James reaches across Skanda’s chest to pet him, and Skanda is almost overwhelmed again by how much he loves them both.

“Penny for them?” Q asks.  

Skanda shrugs.  Then James speaks up:  “Does this have anything to do with the wedding invitation I found in your desk at work?”

Skanda’s laugh is wry.  “You mean the one inside a book inside my locked drawer inside my desk inside my locked office?”

“Yes.”  James has the grace to sound amused, and Q laughs, too.

“Oh!  You said you needed a date,” Q remembers, and Skanda winces.

“I don’t after all.  I’m not going, I’ve decided.”

James hums again, the situation resolved, but Q is quiet, thoughtful.  “Why not?”

“Because I think it might be more trouble than it’s worth, honestly,” Skanda tells him.  “I haven’t seen my father’s brother or his family since—”

“Because you want to protect them?” Q asks, and.  It’s not quite gentle, the way he asks, but Skanda knows what he means.

“I know.  I—neither of you.  You don’t have family left, and I—I do, so I shouldn’t be—”  He trails off, quiet as James presses kisses to his neck and throat while Q’s fingers tangle with his.  “I feel so guilty,” Skanda finally confesses.

“Do you want to go?”  It’s a pragmatic question, and there’s no censure in Q’s voice when he asks.

“Yes,” Skanda realises.  “I do, but—”

“Then you should go.  I can’t—I don’t speak for, for James, but for me, I’d have done anything for a cousin, an aunt, an uncle.”  There’s nothing judging in Q’s voice, but Skanda still feels chastened, if only gently.  “I would go.”

“You could be his date,” James suggests.

Skanda frowns.  “I can’t choose one of you to be my partner, but I can’t take both of you.”

“I’m not a wedding person,” James says, and Q shifts against him.  

“I don’t even know how they’d react to me bringing a man, honestly.”

“You’ll find out, then.”  When James has made his mind up like this, it’s difficult to argue with him, so Skanda rubs at Q’s hair until Q is purring and James has settled in again.  He can feel James’s hair against his shoulder, and that anxious thing in his chest has loosened, though not entirely.  

He hasn’t talked to his uncle Jyoti in so long, but dwelling on it now won’t help.  He presses his lips to James’s forehead and tries to sleep.

::

The day of the wedding, Skanda wakes with butterflies in his stomach.  He’s opted out of the family events, begged off as too busy for the days of preparations and parties, but there’s no getting out of the ceremony itself or the reception.  He’s almost on autopilot as he showers, then shakes Q awake for his turn in the bathroom before contemplating his suit where it hangs over the wardrobe door.  

“You’ll be very dashing.  All of your little cousins won’t know what to do with themselves,” James says from where he’s sitting on the bed nursing a coffee.  He looks comfortable, bare to the waist and relaxed in pajama trousers; Skanda wants to curl up with him and skip the entire day.

“Why don’t you go with Q and I’ll be the one to stay home with the dog?”

“Your family really will wonder how you’ve changed, then,” James teases gently.  He eases himself out of the pile of sleep-rumpled sheets and puts his coffee on the nightstand before coming to gingerly wrap Skanda in his arms; Skanda figures he must look as delicate as he feels right now.  “They love you.  At the very least you’ll go, say hello, wish the bride a happy marriage, and eat so many hors d’oeuvres you’ll pop—keep an eye on Q, because he really might—”

“Might what?”  Q’s rubbing the towel over his head and dripping on the floor.  James laughs.

“Eat enough to make yourself sick,” Skanda tells him, and Q’s grin goes wide.

“Is your aunt cooking?  Does she cook as well as you do?”  He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet like a child, and Skanda laughs, too.

“You won’t find out if you don’t get dressed,” he tells Q.

“—said the pot to the kettle,” Q retorts.

“Does it make you take more pity on me if I tell you I’m terrified?” Skanda asks.

“Nope.  There’s delicious food in it for me if I make you go,” Q chirps back.

Somehow Skanda manages to get them to the venue, an estate his uncle has rented for the event.  Barely thirty minutes out of London and Q is watching for foxes, a world away from the hustle of the city.  He knows he’s got it right from the colourful decorations, and he’s timed it just right too: they sidle into their seats just before the wedding party arrives.  The groom comes first, his face shrouded by strings of pearls; voices raise in singing prayer, and the groom’s jewels are gifted to the gods.  Then the song changes, and it’s Skanda’s family pouring into the room, cousins and aunts and uncles he hasn’t seen in twenty-five years, some he hasn’t seen in longer, some he’s never met.  They fill the low altar with gifts of flower petals and small jewels, until the doors open wider and Uncle Jyoti leads Shayna in, a vision in rose-coloured silks.  She’s luminous, every inch of her hands and delicately slippered feet covered in swirling scrolls of mehndi, her clothes dripping diamante and heavy with embroidery, her arms ringed to the elbows in gold and diamond and garnet and ruby.  Something tugs at Skanda’s chest; she’d been four when he saw her last.

The ceremony begins, then passes in a blur of prayer and song.  When their turn to gift the bride and groom comes, he doesn’t try to hide how much he drops in their laps, only busses Shayna’s cheek and sidles off and out of the way before they’re caught.  He doesn’t make it far.

“Skanda?”  And he’s never been able to face Aunt Maanika’s tears; she’s lovely in the half light of the evening, and he wraps her into a hug.

“Did you think I wouldn’t come to Shayna’s wedding?” he asks as if he hadn’t considered missing it.  Her face shows she knows better, brows lowered in wry humour though her mouth is full and generous with kisses for him.

“You said—” she insists, but smiles when he smiles at her.

“Of course I was free.  I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

And then Uncle Jyoti is there, and it’s as if two and a half decades have melted away; Skanda’s stunned to realise how much his uncle looks like his father: the same small lines around the eyes, the same curl of an ear.  The same smile.  His throat closes on an old grief.  He sees it echoed on his uncle’s face.

“She’s beautiful,” Skanda says sincerely, and Uncle Jyoti smiles.  

“Of course she is.  She looks just like her mother at that age, you know.”

“Then I can see why you married Aunt Maanika.  I didn’t recognise the groom—?” Skanda asks.

Uncle Jyoti nods.  “Paul.  We asked her to marry a nice Indian boy, but what can you do?  Two out of three isn’t bad.”  He glances at Q and smiles wryly.  “For you, we’ll settle for one if it’s the right one, too.”

Skanda can feel the sting of a flush coming to his face.  “If he’s a nice boy, isn’t that two?  This is Mark.  Mark, my Uncle Jyotiprakash and my Aunt Maanika.”

“I’ve heard such lovely things about you,” Q tells them, taking Uncle Jyoti’s handshake and barely blinking an eye at Aunt Maanika’s hug.  

“We’ve heard nothing about you,” Uncle Jyoti tells him, and Skanda deserves the gentle needling.  His mouth still goes dry.  “He’ll fix that now, yes?”

“Yes.”  Q sounds so certain.  His hand is sure when he reaches for Skanda’s sweaty one; the smile he gives him is beatific.

And just like that, the trial is past.  His aunt and uncle can’t stay, but Skanda gives them each a one-armed hug and promises to visit again, once the dizzy bustle of the wedding has past.  They’re chased out of the space so the venue can set up the Western-style reception, a nod to Paul’s traditions, and there’s dinner and drinks and then suddenly dancing, and Skanda recognises he may be in shock, still compartmentalising his emotions as he realises—these people are his family.  He’s an orphan, too—orphans do make the best recruits—but he’s not alone.  Q turns a face dotted with worry to him, and Skanda tries to smile reassuringly.  They’re together, surrounded by friends and family, by his beautiful cousin and her beautiful wedding, and it feels off—it feels wrong.

“Are you alright?” Q asks, and Skanda shrugs, then.

Then: “No.  Not really.”

Q hums, almost inaudible under the booming dance music.  “Can I help?”

“You are,” Skanda tells him, because it’s true.

“Can James help?”  Because Q is too clever by half.  Skanda smiles and presses a kiss behind Q’s ear.

When they get home, James is still sitting up, ostensibly cleaning his Walther.  He could be actually doing it, Skanda reasons.  He knows James enjoys weapons maintenance as a leisure activity.  But he looks up a bit too quickly as they walk in the door; Q has glitter in his hair and Skanda reaches to brush it out.

“Did you have fun?” James asks, and just like that, everything that was missing before falls into place.

“Q ate his body weight in dal.  I thought we were going to have to wheel him out of there.”

“Not true,” Q protests.  He’s stripping out of his suit, tie and trousers already puddled on the floor as if they didn’t cost him an obscene amount at one of James’s Savile Row tailors.

“It was chicken tikka,” Skanda corrects, and James’s eyes sparkle.

“That one’s not even really Indian,” Q complains.  “Make up things that are believable.”

“You’re home earlier than I thought,” James notes, and Skanda nods, dropping his own suit to the floor in favour of the soft, familiar cotton of his pajamas, which are sitting on the top of the basket of unfolded laundry on the table.  He sinks into his favourite chair, then frowns, standing.  

“I felt strange being there,” Skanda says.  On the couch, Q nods and shuffles over, leaving room for him; when Skanda sits between them, he tucks his head on Skanda’s shoulder and takes his hand to scratch idle patterns on the palm.

“Your family?” James asks.  He places the gun, fully reassembled, on the table and frowns.

“Yes, in a way,” Skanda agrees.  At his side, Q hums.  He already knows the punchline, and his weight is comforting, warm where he’s glued himself to Skanda’s side.  “Someone was missing.”

This is what it takes for James to catch on, though to his credit, he doesn’t tease Skanda for being a sentimental old fool.  There’s a small, private smile on his face and Skanda watches him try to push it back; when he fails, Skanda rewards him with the brush of his lips against James’s knuckles.

“‘ _Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love_.’”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title and the poetry Skanda recites come from the work Stray Birds by Rabindranath Tagore. You should read it; it's lovely!


End file.
